A big controversy surrounding the race for mayor of Honolulu is
focused on the state's pay-to-play culture of the past, and what pay
to play actually is. The reason for this is that a former Hawaii
governor is running for mayor, and he is being supported by Bob Watada, a former
state Campaign Spending Commission executive director who is
known for bringing the state's pay-to-play culture to its knees
during his 1994-2005 term in office.

According to a
November 2005 look at the executive director's career in the
Hawaii Reporter, he fined nearly 100 companies for making
"false name" contributions and excessive contributions primarily to
the then Honolulu mayor and the then governor, who is now running
for mayor. "The city prosecutor and federal government took over
some of Watada’s cases charging corporate executives of those
companies with money laundering, making illegal campaign
contributions and tax evasion. The companies participated in the
scheme to boost their chances of getting government contracts,
concession rights or zoning clearances. Watada also either headed
investigations, or uncovered information, that led to a long line of
powerful politicians going to jail."

One politician who was not prosecuted was the then governor.
Watada says that he was clean, that he didn't know who made
contributions, that he didn't know about the illegal contributions made to his compaign,
and that the fact that he closed down his committee rather than
returning illegal contributions was common practice and perfectly legal.

If you read the newspapers and blogs, the big issues in the
Chicago Chick-fil-A controversy are free speech and government
boycotts. But it's really a government ethics issue.

All rational voices acknowledge that a local legislator should not
block a store opening just because it has given large sums to help
an unpopular political cause. What they aren't saying is that a
local legislator shouldn't be able to block a store opening in his
district at all. Zoning matters should not be up to council members.
They should be up to zoning boards and zoning officials.

Talk about independent expenditures usually refers to such
expenditures in support, or more often in opposition to, federal
candidates. At the local level, the major independent expenditures
tend to come from unions, both public service unions and
construction unions. There are also cases where independent
expenditures come from contractors and others seeking direct benefits from
the candidates they support or oppose. This can look very much like
a payoff for favors done and/or for future favors, generally referred to as pay to play.

One such case has arisen in Montebello, CA, a small city of 62,000.
According to an
article posted yesterday evening on the Whittier Daily News
website, a company that had recently obtained a no-bid $150
million, 15-year refuse hauling contract gave "close to $353,000" (or nearly $14 per registered
voter) to a 2009 Say No on Recall campaign committee it created. Two of the council
members were targeted for recall largely due to approval of the
refuse contract. The small refuse companies that had formerly done
the work provided most of the funding for the pro-recall
committee, according to an
article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

The situation of Rose Pak, a power broker for San Francisco's Chinese-American
community who was featured a week ago in a
New York Times article, raises some interesting
questions. A paid consultant to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, she
has never held public office. Nor has she ever registered as a
lobbyist or been an official member of a campaign, even that of the
Chinese-American man who was just elected mayor, Edwin Lee.
According to the article, she has mobilized Chinese votes,
volunteers, and contributions for a succession of mayors and city
supervisors in return for city financing of social programs and
building projects in Chinatown. She also helps Chinese-Americans get
appointments in the city government, most notably Lee's appointment
as interim mayor (he had been the city administrator).

Legal Disciplinary Proceeding as Ethics Enforcement Forum
Occasionally, government ethics enforcement spills out from ethics
and criminal proceedings into other types of proceeding. Since Maricopa County's officials have managed to turn
ethics and criminal enforcement into a form of internecine warfare, the state's
lawyer disciplinary program has gotten into the action.

How you present an ethics provision can make all the difference.
Take a pay-to-play ordinance proposed in Fort Wayne, which would
limit the amount of contributions and gifts that can be given to
city officials by an individual or entity if it wants to have a
no-bid contract with the city.